Candido Rondon's Positivism

Candido Rondon, known colloquially as Marechal Rondon, was a devout Brazilian expansionist of both faith and civic pride. He successfully did what many before him had tried and failed to do, which was to unite Brazil. A driving force behind his seemingly superhuman motivation and desire to accomplish his goals of both unifying Western Brazil and Coastal Brazil and helping to further the rights of indigenous peoples was rooted in his ideological beliefs, namely the pseudo-religion of Positivism. However, Rondon's ascetic personality not only helped him, but also hurt him by putting him at odds with various national institutions at the time. Much of what Rondon desired and wanted was paradoxical in nature. A prime example of this would be his desire for native Brazilians to preserve their cultures and have a semblance …show more content…
This combined with Rondon's realized goal of a truly national telegraph system and formation of the Indian Protection Bureau created an interconnected Brazil. However, his beliefs in Positivism had helped and hurt him, by being both the driving catalyst in his mission to unite his country, and the obstacle that made this mission exponentially harder, by being in constant conflict with both the military and The Catholic Church. One could make the argument that the modern Brazil he helped to develop was made in the name of Positivism itself. Nonetheless, it was technically impossible for him to model Brazil as Positivist and unite it under militaristic means, i.e, using the military to embue a sense of national pride. Positivism began to fade out during the early 20th century, replaced once again by militarism. Even after the fad had long ended, Rondon remained a steadfast believer in Positivism until his dying days. He was a man of conviction and principle, although those principles